On the road to recovery: Gasoline content regulations and child health

Marcus, Michelle

doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.04.003

Cited by 16 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Infrastructure is frequently developed as a bundle. The estimated results could be driven by other types of infrastructure that are developed following the same spatial and temporal pattern as my instrument if these also pose health hazards, such as pollution from roads and energy plants (Marcus, 2017;Gupta and Spears, 2017). Furthermore, my results could be explained by other types of infrastructure that are beneficial for early-life health, but developed following the opposite pattern to my instrument.…”

Section: Validity Of the Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 82%

Can white elephants kill? Unintended consequences of infrastructure development in Peru

Bancalari¹

2020

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It is widely accepted that investing in public infrastructure promotes economic development. However, there is little awareness of the prevalence of unfinished infrastructure projects and their consequences. In this paper, I study the effect of unfinished sewerage infrastructure on early-life mortality in Peru. I compile several sources of administrative panel data for 1,400 districts spanning 2005-2015, and I rely on the budgetary plans and timing of expenditure for 6,000 projects to measure unfinished projects and those completed in a given district. I document that mid-construction abandonment and delays are highly prevalent. I exploit geographical features and partisan alignment to instrument for project implementation. Surprisingly, I find that unfinished sewerage projects increased early-life mortality, driven by lack of water availability, water-borne diseases and accidents. I also show that while unfinished projects pose hazards to the population, completed sewerage projects decrease early-life mortality, in line with public health studies in advanced economies during the previous centuries.

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Section: Validity Of the Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 82%

Can white elephants kill? Unintended consequences of infrastructure development in Peru

Bancalari¹

2020

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“…He et al (forthcoming) document that a 17.86 percent reduction in NO x reduces respiratory admissions among children by 9.1 percent in the of a highly polluted megacity. Marcus (2017) finds that regulations in California requiring cleaner-burning gasoline decrease NO 2 , CO, and SO 2 by 2, 6, and 11 percent, and also decrease asthma hospitalizations by 3 to 8 percent for children living near highways. Schlenker and Walker (2016) use air traffic network delays originating in the eastern United States as an instrument for pollution in California, and find that a one standard deviation increase in CO pollution is associated with a 37 percent increase in asthma hospital visits for children under 5 years.…”

Section: Discussion Of Magnitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The evidence is deemed sufficient to conclude a causal relationship only in the case of the exacerbation of asthma. For recent quasi-experimental evidence of traffic-related pollution impacts on asthma, see Marcus (2017) and Simeonova et al (2018). 2 Anderson (forthcoming)-another related paper studying a relatively disadvantaged population-documents mortality impacts of car pollution for elderly Los Angeles residents living next to highways, exploiting the fact that downwind neighborhoods get more pollution on average.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

Alexander

Schwandt²

2019

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Car exhaust is a major source of air pollution, but little is known about its impacts on population health due to socioeconomic selection, measurement error, and avoidance behaviors. We exploit the dispersion of emissions-cheating diesel cars-which secretly polluted up to 150 times as much as gasoline cars-across the United States from 2008-2015 as a unique opportunity to overcome these empirical challenges and measure the health impacts of car pollution. Using the universe of vehicle registrations, we demonstrate that a 10 percent cheating-induced increase in car exhaust increases rates of low birth weight and acute asthma attacks among children by 1.9 and 8.0 percent, respectively. These health impacts occur at all pollution levels and across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. * Diane Alexander (dalexand@frbchi.org) is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Hannes Schwandt (schwandt@northwestern.edu) is an assistant professor of economics at the School for Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. We are thankful to 1 threats to causal inference, including socio-economic selection, avoidance behavior, and measurement error. In this paper, we exploit a unique natural experiment that overcomes these empirical challenges.In 2008, a new generation of supposedly clean diesel passenger cars was introduced to the U.S. market. 3 These new diesel cars were marketed to environmentally conscious consumers, with advertising emphasizing the power and mileage typical for diesel engines in combination with unprecedented low emissions levels. Clean diesel cars won the Green Car of the Year Award in 2009 and 2010, and quickly gained market share. By 2015, over 600,000 cars with clean diesel technology were sold in the United States. In the fall of 2015, however, it was discovered that these cars covertly activated equipment during emissions tests that reduced emissions below official thresholds, and then reversed course after testing. In street use, a single "clean diesel" car could pollute as much nitrogen oxide (NO X ; a precursor to fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone) as 150 equivalent gasoline cars. 4 Hereafter, we refer to cars with "clean diesel" technology as cheating diesel cars.The dispersion of these cheating diesel cars across the United States gives us a unique opportunity to measure the causal effect of car pollution on infant and child health. This natural experiment provides several unique features. First, it is typically difficult to infer causal effects from observed correlations of health and car pollution, as wealthier individuals tend to sort into less-polluted areas and drive newer, less-polluting cars. The fast roll-out of cheating diesel cars provides us with plausibly exogenous variation in car pollution exposure across the entire socioeconomic spectrum of the United States. Second, it is well established that people avoid known pollution, which can mute estimated impacts of air pollution on health (Neidell, 2009). Moderate pollution increases stemming from cheatin...

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“…Methodologically, we have been influenced by Luechinger (2009Luechinger ( , 2014 and Bilger and Carrieri (2013), and more broadly by Marcus (2017). The paper may also relate to the scientific foundations of dementia, which is now one of the modern world's most fundamental health problems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is there a link between air pollution and impaired memory? Evidence on 34,000 english citizens

Powdthavee

Oswald

2020

Ecological Economics

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On the road to recovery: Gasoline content regulations and child health

Cited by 16 publications

References 54 publications

Can white elephants kill? Unintended consequences of infrastructure development in Peru

Can white elephants kill? Unintended consequences of infrastructure development in Peru

The Impact of Car Pollution on Infant and Child Health: Evidence from Emissions Cheating

Is there a link between air pollution and impaired memory? Evidence on 34,000 english citizens

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